I just saw the Dateline Special on her. There wasn't any real evidence against her except some admissions she made to the police during the course of a pressured interrogation. She seems, like the character in the Camus novel The Stranger, to have been guilty of acting inappropriately after a murder....The crime was obscene and ugly, but this is even more disturbing than the crime itself. I think she and the young man will be exonerated. This is just too noxious and well publicized to withstand examination....I know appearances can be deceiving but to accuse such sympathetic young people of being involved in some type of murder/sex atrocity without evidence is a far leap of imagination. To actually convict them staggers the imagination. I don't understand how this could have happened.

You're guilty until proven innocent in Italy, and the defense had little to exonerate her. Moreover, the prosecutors leaked to the media a lot of prejudicial material that they couldn't introduce in the trial. Given the ability of the Italian justice system to drag matters out (cf. the crash of a jetliner near Ustica in 1980, which still is an active scandal), I am pessimistic about her chances on appeal. At least most Italian sentences are short, even for murder.

If someone comes into your home and kills your wife with a knife from your butcher's block, your DNA evidence is going to be all over the knife. Your DNA is contained in every skin cell and hair you shed.

The fact they found Amanda Knox's DNA on things inside her own fucking apartment is just laughable.

This poor girl is going to jail for the better part of her life because Italians are fucking moron goombahs. And this result proves it.

In fact, I had quite forgotten how "lenient" the prison terms were back in my old continent, until the point was brought home to me in a movie starring Kristin Scott Thomas, "I've Loved You So Long". Her character is a mother who killed her baby son. She served TWELVE years.

Just today a man was sentenced to 75 years for MUGGING 4 elderly women. I mean, wow. Don't mess with the American legal justice system.

I'm not sure either way. There was DNA evidence, after all, but sparse and challengeable.

I'll say that whilst I am appalled at the verdict, that I too have my doubts that she's 100% innocent. However, based on the evidence presented by the Italian prosecutor, in US courts she would've walked away scott free and deservedly so.

Did you know that her fingerprints were not found in the flat, although other fingerprints were found all over?

The prosecution argued that by the time the police arrived, she had wiped away her fingerprints. Think about it. She had to have known which fingerprints were hers and which ones should remain. Mindboggling.

She changed her story and she also fingerpointed another person. Damning, agreed, but that's it?

Frankly, this story is very similar to the whole Natalee Holloway/Joran Van der Sloot situation. There wasn't an ounce of concrete evidence that he had committed the crime, although in his case, I'm fairly sure he killed her or helped to kill her.

But except for being the last person seen with her, there is no hard proof. Dutch law seems to err much more on the side of innocence, than Italian law, though. That's where it's the exact opposite in this case.

Judge Andrew "Extremely low hairline" Napolitano explained that the Italian justice system allows for THREE appeals, including allowing the judge in the first to throw out the explanation given by the jury for conviction, based on "plausible supposition". So basically if the judge thinks the story doesn't add up, he can disregard the verdict and come to his or her own conclusions. Yikes.

I am so not in favour of Roman law, which is judge-based not jury-based like ours.

This case made me think of the Woodward case because in that case many English felt that Boston prosecutors were out to get an English girl, and in this case many Americans feel the Italians were out to get the American. And, personally, I did think the prosecutors in that Woodward case were pretty deranged. In fact, I was shocked at how coldly they acted, with no apparent concern for seeking true justice.

I have a pretty low view of prosecutors in general. This Italian prosecutor seemed to care about his own problems more than seeking justice. And, in my limited experience, I have concluded that very few American prosecutors are ethical.

The astonsihing thing, to me, is that principal perpetrator -- who fled to Germany and has since been convicted on the basis of conclusive DNA evidence -- was not even a suspect at the time the Italian prosecutor spun his lurid tale (hypothesis?)about Knox and her boyfriend!

"Oh come on, folks. For a supposed innocent, her post-crime behavior was downright bizarre at best. No moral indignation. No outrage. Just affected weirdness. Until it was too late. Where does that even come from?"

None of this behavior is evidence that she committed the murder.

I'm not persuaded either way as to her guilt, and you should remember that the American media coverage is likely as biased and the British and Italian coverage. Still, William's comparison to the character in the Camus novel seems apt.

It's not evidence of consciousness of guilt, which involves stuff like running away from the scene when the cops arrive. At a stretch, you could argue that falsely accusing the barman shows consciousness of guilt. But she shouldn't have been indicted, let alone convicted, unless there is some significant evidence that she was at the scene and took part in the killing.

It's unwise to talk about the sufficiency of the evidence unless you know exactly what the prosecution's case was, but I gather that a crucial item was the presence of trace DNA on the knife may have been used in the killing. (But the stories I've read also say that the knife in question didn't fit the stab wounds.) That knife was used by Knox and the victim in their kitchen. It seems pretty obvious to me that the DNA could have got on the knife while Knox was cooking. If that's really a key part of the prosecution's case, it seems a pretty weak case to me.

This case caught my eye a long time ago, so I've been following along as information and even vignettes became available. Like Victoria, I also wonder why this didn't get more attention in the states before now.

I seriously doubt she would have been convicted in a court of law here due to questionable evidence handling and a botched crime scene investigation. That's not to say that she and her boyfriend are innocent.

Knox's behavior from beginning to end has been beyond odd. It's been bizarre. She's not a stranger in a strange land as much as she's one strange, young lady.

I don't think you can put this down as anti-American bias. The young man who was convicted was Italian. He looks like an utterly decent young man.... The two young people did not behave admirably under police questioning. Only French resistance fighters in Warner Brothers movies do. In "1984", Winston Smith and his girlfriend betrayed their love and each other pdq while in custody. Their past love thus became a source of shame. If you see guilt in this young couple, perhaps that is the source of it. It is hard to shift gears between Amelie and Kafka without dropping the transmission.... Amanda implicated an innocent man under interrogation. This speaks more to the heaviness of police pressure than to her strength in being able to withstand it. She was a polite young woman taken to a foreign jail and interrogated by overbearing cops accusing her of a monstruous crime. She broke.....It will be interesting to see if people of the left in Italy and also here take the same interest in her case as they do of the GItmo prisoners.

True, but IRRC and the news stories are accurate, the admission came during a night-long interrogation without a lawyer present. Telling conflicting stories is hardly evidence of guilt, especially in those circumstances. I'd still like some evidence that she actually killed the girl, not that she behaved wierdly afterwards.

But this shows how difficult it is to talk about a the case when you don't know exactly how the investigation was handled and what evidence was introduced at trial. The people who insist she is innocent claim there was nothing to connect her to the scene except the trace DNA on the knife, and that there was no other DNA from Knox at the scene even though she is supposed to have wielded the knife!

BTW, I am not suggesting that the Italian criminal justice system is a joke, or that the prosecutors or judges were corrupt or biased. But if the American news accounts are anywhere near accurate (which I don't assume), the conviction seems pretty shaky. The point is not that she would have been acquitted under the American system, but the Italian trial was a miscarriage of justice. Stuff like that happens in America, too.

Amanda seems to be a perfect example of the case where the jury rules, "not guilty, but probably needs to go to jail anyway". Juries can show mercy and pardon guilty men and women and the juries can dislike a person enough to find them guilty of something . That seems to be the case here. Amanda's group was not the type of people Italians want in Rome, and they sent that message loud and clear. Juries are the descision makers. That is one more reason to respect cultural mores in a society.

Oh come on, folks. For a supposed innocent, her post-crime behavior was downright bizarre at best. No moral indignation. No outrage. Just affected weirdness. Until it was too late. Where does that even come from?

I agree. What is it about the Pacific Northwest that breeds wackos like Knox? Too much caffeine? Rains too much?

I've been following this story from the beginning and always felt she was guilty --maybe not the knife wielder, but certainly the siren who put someone up to it.

"She changed her story and she also fingerpointed another person. Damning, agreed, but that's it?"

Holy God, this is the biggest bullshit part of this story and an object lesson in why you can never, ever speak to the fucking police.

The police are corrupt.

In this case, they accused Ms. Knox in her interrogation and when she protested her innocence, they asked her to imagine what might have happened that night, so she speculated on who might have killed the girl. She merely provided police with a list of possible suspects other than herself who might have had the ability and time to do it.

She didn't "point the finger" at someone and then later change her story. She was merely a naive little girl who was unfortunately too willing to try to help the police.

The police are corrupt and do not care if you are guilty or innocent. Never, ever submit to questioning from them.

The moment Amanda Knox got a lawyer all questioning stopped (because the lawyer realized the game the police were playing).

You have the right to remain silent. Even if you don't have that right (in a foreign country for example) everything you say (including who you think might have done it) can and will be used against you.

Never, ever speak to them.

Knox, innocent, did to her great misfortune. She is in jail. Polanski, guilty, is free in Gstaad living it up and searching for his next victim.

I was watching CNN last night and apparently the prosecutor is a complete nut case, and has framed other people under similar circumstances... I personally thought she might be lying without really thinking about the evidence. I just don't see how she could have been involved in a bloody murder like that and not left bloody finger prints. She was a pot head for God's sake. Because the prosecutor is such a scum bag, the word on the street is that she'll get off on appeal.

JohnAnnArbor, The science of "shaken-baby syndrome" has changed since Louise Woodward's trial. From what I remember of the new science, it probably would have made it tough to convict her.

Otherwise, as far as Amanda Knox goes, if what the public evidence is what we have heard I don't know how they could have convicted her. But we haven't heard all the evidence. I wonder if the CIA kidnapping case hurt her by association, i.e. American -> guilty.

Did she think, poor child, that the state cannot, whenever it so pleases, do whatever it wants to you, for whatever reason?

Has she, in her postmodern American education, failed to digest that when words lose their meaning and truth belongs only to the power that speaks it, the individual is thus enslaved and without recourse?

As such the sentence came first, the verdict was a mere formality.Off with her head.

I am so not in favour of Roman law, which is judge-based not jury-based like ours.

Ditto. Folks might like to read Winston Churchill's characterization of the Roman versus English legal systems (from his terrific History of the English-Speaking Peoples):

“It is a maxim of English law that legal memory begins with the accession of Richard I in 1189. The date was set for a technical reason by a statute of Edward I. It could scarcely have been more appropriately chosen however, for with the close of the reign of Henry II we are on the threshold of a new epoch in the history of English law. With the establishment of a system of royal courts, giving the same justice all over the country, the old diversity of local law was rapidly broken down, and a law common to the whole land and to all men soon took its place. A modern lawyer, transported to the England of Henry's predecessor, would find himself in strange surroundings; with the system that Henry bequeathed to his son he would feel almost at home. That is the measure of the great King's achievement. He had laid the foundations of the English Common Law, upon which succeeding generations would build. Changes in the design would arise, but its main outlines were not to be altered.

“It was in these fateful and formative years that the English-speaking peoples began to devise methods of determining legal disputes which survive in substance to this day. A man can only be accused of a civil or criminal offence which is clearly defined and known to the law. The judge is an umpire. He adjudicates on such evidence as the parties choose to produce. Witnesses must testify in public and on oath. They are examined and cross-examined, not by the judge, but by the litigants themselves or their legally qualified and privately hired representatives. The truth of their testimony is weighed not by the judge b[ut] by twelve good men and true, and it is only when this jury has determined the facts that the judge is empowered to impose sentence, punishment, or penalty according to law.

“All might seem very obvious, even a platitude, until one contemplates the alternative system which still dominates a large portion of the world. Under Roman law, and systems derived from it, a trial in those turbulent centuries, and in some countries even to-day, is often an inquisition. The judge makes his own investigation into the civil wrong or the public crime, and such investigation is largely uncontrolled. The suspect can be interrogated in private. He must answer all questions put to him. His right to be represented by a legal adviser is restricted. The witnesses against him can testify in secret and in his absence. And only when these processes have been accomplished is the accusation or charge against him formulated and published. Thus often arises secret intimidation, enforced confessions, torture, and blackmailed pleas of guilty.

“These sinister dangers were extinguished from the Common Law of England more than six centuries ago. By the time Henry II's great-grandson, Edward I had died English criminal and civil procedure had settled into a mould and tradition which in the mass govern the English-speaking peoples to-day. In all claims and disputes, whether they concerned the grazing lands of the Middle West, the oilfields of California, the sheep-runs and gold-mines of Australia, or the territorial rights of the Maoris, these rules have obtained, at any rate in theory, according to the procedure and mode of trial evolved by the English Common Law.”

Florida @ 8:11...That is very true advice. The TV shows these days show truth seekers only doing the right thing in Law Enforcement. That just is not the way it works. Prosecutors are seldom ethical and will to win rather than see justice, since from their point of view all the accuseds are guilty of something...They have never met an innocent person. It helps to see it as a game, and laugh with them about the validity of the evidence and lack of evidence. In real world cases 90% of the evidence comes from the small story imperfections that the accused is told to explain or else. The defense motto is: "plead not what you need not for fear of having to prove what you cannot". The accused is made to prove his statement is true or lose the case...Therefore never make a statement because no one ever knows exactly what has happened.

This case sounds a whole lot like the one in 'The Monster of Florence' -- the same pattern of wild satanic sex crime theories by the prosecutors. Read that book (it's well worth it) and I think you'll see this case, and the Italian justice system, in a different light.

That said, the idea that justice systems in the U.S. never do anything similar is, unfortunately, very far from the truth. Read, for example, some of what Radley Balko at Reason has written about Steven Hayne in Mississippi:

Perhaps after enough of these kinds of cases (this one, the Holloway case) parents will begin teaching their sweet young daughters who just *have* to go overseas for adventures to avoid hanging out with seedy drug dealers. Bad things tend to happen. My guess is that without that Ivory Coast drug dealer being involved (to the extent of screwing the dead girl at some point), none of this would have happened. American children, raised in our safe little suburbs with our honest judges and police, are real babes in the woods in these foreign places.

Perhaps after enough of these kinds of cases (this one, the Holloway case) parents will begin teaching their sweet young daughters who just *have* to go overseas for adventures to avoid hanging out with seedy drug dealers. Bad things tend to happen.

Like I said in the previous Knox thread, being a drug-addled skank is never a smart move. And that goes triple overseas.

Beware. There are TWO books called "The Monster of Florence". I told my ex-boyfriend that I'd love to read that book with him, so he picked it up at his library -- a completely different book than the recent one, with the exact same title about the exact same story. Someone in the editorial staff goofed.

I'm not sure I understand the monetary award that was attached to the sentence. The press reports that the convicted pair has to pay a total of 5 million euros to members of the victims families. How did the monetary award get in here, and where is the money supposed to come from? I understand that the trial has just about bankrupted Knox's family.

Bottom line is you don't have a Constitutional right to be a drug-addled skank with no consequences. I'm so glad this skank will be dong the next 25 years of her life in the slammer. That will not only teach her a lesson but all those like her. Italy does NOT want you.

Alex, I wasn't implying she DESERVED the sentence on being a skank alone. It's just not a wise move, like parking an unlocked Corvette in Detroit. You don't deserve to have your car stolen or vandalized, but the chance for SOMETHING bad to happen is high if you leave it out certain places.

When she blamed her boss (the bar owner), didn't they have her in questioning for 40 hours without a lawyer? "Imagine you were in the house when she was murdered - what would you be doing?"

You know, if she understood the system - whether in Italy or the US - she would have known not to ask answer any questions without a lawyer.

Then again, you ask for a lawyer, the media, some of the jurors and many people would assume that means you are guilty. If I am ever questioned by cops for anything serious, I am not speaking, but asking for a laywer knowing it will be unfortunate that some people will assume that means I am guilty because, "If you're innocent you have nothing to hide, right?"

I defy anyone, especially a young woman to not get worn down and say SOMETHING construed as incriminating after 40 hours of questioning.

Alex - she's a drug addled skank? Where's your proof? Did the police take drug tests? Is there anything to base this on other than the flamboyant spotlighting seeking prosecutor?

I am often shocked by the "hooking up," culture of college students today, but I think if this were a guy, you would think it was OK (he's a guy and guys like sex!) and not assume he had it coming because he was promiscuous with women.

I am often shocked by the "hooking up," culture of college students today, but I think if this were a guy, you would think it was OK (he's a guy and guys like sex!) and not assume he had it coming because he was promiscuous with women.

There is an episode of "Crimes that Shook the World" about the monster of Florence. (It's an uneven series--some episodes are excellent, some just so-so. Don't remember if this was one of the good ones or not.)

Watching last night's 48hrs today and the man who wrote Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston, talked about his run in with the prosecutor who is the same prosecutor for the Florence murders. Basically, he interrogated Preston for 5 hours because his theories were contradicted and said he "knew" Preston was guilty of crimes.h

He was also on the today show - his segment starts around 3.25 into the video:

Americans always seem to use movies and TV to help define thier reality. When they think of the Knox trial most Americans have an image of corrupt european justiceand incompetent police. After all America has 'CSI' 50 x's a week..a perfect world of brilliant police tech investigation that gets to the bottom of every case through crystaline analysis. you should go throug your prisons and see how many are jailed on half the evidence of this case. the Italians didnt want to find her guilty. They knew the fallout would be heavy. they had no choice considering the information they had,of which none of us do. All this will be released soon enough. in my opinion this is a case of a young American girl who's own reality is sketchy from the get go who comes to study in foreign coun try and picks Perugia which is notorious for hard drugs, wild parties, and loose morals and wanted to make her TV come to life. Welecome to the real world America. Its time you all get a life. By the way Im an American living in Italy thank God

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito repeatedly told the police a pack of lies in the days after Meredith's murder.

On 5 November 2007, Knox and Sollecito were confronted with proof that they had lied and were given another opportunity to tell the truth. However, they both chose to tell the police even more lies.

Sollecito's new alibi was shattered by computer forensic evidence and his mobile phone records.

Knox accused an innocent man, Diya Lumumba, of murdering Meredith despite knowing full well that he was completely innocent. She didn't recant her false and malicious allegation against Lumumba the whole time he was in prison.

Knox's account of what happened on 2 November 2007 is contradicted by her mobile phone records.

Rudy Guede's bloody footprints lead straight out of Meredith's room and out of the house. He didn't lock Meredith's door, remove his trainers, go into Filomena's room or the bathroom that Meredith and Knox shared.

Rudy Guede didn't scale the vertical wall outside Filomena's room or gain access through the window. The break-in was clearly staged. This indicates that somebody who lived at the cottage was trying to deflect attention away from themselves and give the impression that a stranger had broken in and killed Meredith.

Guede had no reason to stage the break-in and there was no physical evidence that he went into Filomena's room.

The scientific police found a mixture of Amanda Knox's DNA and Meredith's blood on the floor.

There was no physical evidence that Rudy Guede went into the blood-spattered bathroom. However, the scientific police found proof that Knox and Sollecito tracked Meredith's blood into this bathroom.

Amanda Knox’s DNA was found mingled with Meredith’s blood in three different places in the bathroom: on the ledge of the basin, on the bidet, and on a box of Q Tips cotton swabs.

Sollecito left a visible bloody footprint on the blue bathmat.

Amanda Knox left a bloody shoeprint on the pillow under Meredith's body.

Knox's and Sollecito's bare bloody footprints were revealed by luminol in the hallway. Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s DNA was found mixed together in one of the bloody footprints.

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito's DNA was found on Meredith's bra clasp. Sollecito must have applied considerable pressure to the clasp in order to have left so much DNA. The hooks on the clasp were damaged which confirms that Sollecito had gripped them tightly.

Amanda Knox's DNA was found on the handle of the double DNA knife and Meredith's DNA was found lodged in a tiny groove on the blade. Sollecito knew that Meredith's DNA was on the blade which is why he twice lied about accidentally pricking her hand whilst cooking.

The defence experts were unable to prove that there had been any contamination. Alberto Intini, head of the Italian police forensic science unit, pointed out that unless contamination has been proved, it does not exist.

Amanda Knox voluntarily admitted that she involved in Meredith's murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007. She stated on at least four separate occasions that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed. She also claimed that Sollecito was at the cottage.